trickyrich

arrr good to see this one rising to the top again. That cockpit does look really nice and fitting the canopy may help protect it and keep the dust bunnies out. At least your canopy is the correct shape! Nice work with that join, that one does seem to be an issue with that model (The one of the HB monster isn't much better), looks like you got it spot on! There's still time to finish her and if you're going for a grey beastie then the painting should be a breeze. So will a Su-24 be joining the collection after this? It looks to be a natural progression and I know a few have mentioned it in hushed tones!

well done Glynn, she looks awesome!!! Know all too well how bad the HB model is you've done a fantastic job on her, I'm especially impressed with the open canopy. lack of time and sheer terror stopped me from going that far, good on ya for doing it and doing it well! Glad you could join us for the build, I hope it wasn't too painful, now you can sit back and enjoy that wine! I'm with you on the Su-24, have already got that one all planned, have the decals & masks plus all the Complete Zip resin correction sets for the Trumpy beast!

your progress may be slow but you are getting there, keep it up. One thing you may need to check though is the main gear, something doesn't quite look right there.

nice choice so will one of the passengers by yourself?

yes very nice work with the masking, tape usage looks to be a little bit less than what I normally use!! Yes the colour changes between light sources is always very noticeable, nearly as bad as the differences seen between different monitors. It's sort of why I now don't get so hung up on trying to get the exact colour match as in the end everyone is going to see it a bit different. All that aside, she does look really nice, so well done. Plus I know the pain of when a compressor dies in the middle of painting!

by my standards it's not a lot of resin compared to some of my builds! further examination of the moulded control surfaces on the wings confirms that their leading edge (hinge section) is not perpendicular to the centreline of the fuselage, but are angled about 2o forward. All drawings of the wings of the 2000C have the leading edge at 90o to the fuselage centreline! Normally you probably wouldn't notice something like this, but seeing I'm silly enough to replace them, well.......... I think I'm going to have to cut the control surfaces off at there join position on the wing and then rebuild this section to get the angle right. Plus of course the panel detail is a bit skewed as well as it's meant to parallel to the hinge line! Plus I cut the main wheel well doors off to see how they would fit.....they don't! The gap between the doors and the wheel wells, well you could loose small children in it! There'll be quite a bit of work to sort that out. Oh well it was to be a simple build.......one day I'll have one!

someone just answered my prays!!!!!! no they haven't released a new accurate F-111, but instead I have finally managed to get a set of the NovaScale 1/48th F-111C decals for the SEA camouflaged scheme!! I have been looking for these for ages and had almost given up. The HB ones are wrong in so many ways, being the colours for a start! I now have to wait to next week before I can decal. It's going to be cutting things a bit fine.......but don't care, just happy that I've finally got the decals I need.

and??? You know you want too!! You know a life outside of modelling is just there to fill in the gaps inbetween GB's! Just think how much more time you'd have for building if you never went outside! Gosh a whole hanger to yourselves, the luxury!!! In my day had to share hanger with Radtech's, Sparkies, Framies, and Sumpies!!! I don't know what was worse the Blackhanders or Radtechs! (I was a Clockwinder if you hadn't worked that out! ) The only good thing was they made the Gunnies live in a small shed out the back.

yeap even the grey one kept all the inside surfaces of the control surfaces red. thanks, I was really surprised just how little there was out there on the RF-111C, I know there were only 4 but I would have thought there would have been something. It would have been a lot harder to make the recon door without the cast 1/72nd one I found, but even that was incorrect in a lot of places. Least now I have a door ready if someone decides to release a correct and accurate F-111 in the future. it's been a long and quite frustrating build at times (ok most of the time! ) , and it really shouldn't have been. An hour on the internet and HB could have corrected all their mistakes and produced a winner. Instead the wasted all their time on a pair of detailed engines that no one will ever see but can't provide intake inlets to the engines or get the correct number on attachment mounts for the exhaust cans! The mistakes with the decals are just plain lazy or couldn't be bothered! I could have spent so much more time on her, but being away for over 8 weeks really hurt modelling time on her and I'm back to work tomorrow one my normal roster (8/6) so I only have the last 4 days of the build to finish her. You managed to nail the canopy, she looks good and the fit is really nice, mine I will admit is a bit rushed! Hopefully it'll be worth all the time and effort (and money!!) put into her. I'm still hoping someone will release a proper and correct model/s of the F-111 in 1/48th. It'll be interesting to see how she'll like beside a similar scale Su-24!!

Well I’m first cab off the rank of this build, only because I though it was to start last weekend! Had all the photos and stuff ready as well. For this GB I wanted something nice and simple, I had the Eduard 2000C in the stash so all I needed was a new colour scheme as I didn’t fancy the ones supplied. The model is quite simple and really old, it started life in 1992 when it was released by Heller…..and it shows it! The panel detailing is quite nice but some of the other stuff! There are some nice extras with the model, some I’ll use some I won’t. So I plan to throw away the old cockpit and fit a new cockpit Wolfpack one. Plus a few other bits, at the stage I bought the wheels I had planned to build her with wheels down but have since decided to do her in flight. So the wheels are available to anyone who wants them. These doors are part of the reason why I didn’t want to build her wheels down! I’ll either rebuild these or replace them. I’ll probably have to replace them as their shape doesn’t match the door opening at all! Ok finally the colour scheme, well she will be rather bright! Not quite the simple scheme I had planned, but at least it’s all decals this time so that should help. It’s actually going to be part of a bigger theme of builds I’m planning. I want to build up a set of Tiger Meet aircraft, I have the 2015 Polish F-16CJ, I’ve got a 2010 Czech Gripen (about 1/3rd finished) already. So in future GB’s I’ll start to add more. As mentioned this will be do as an in-flight model, I have Leon already for the cockpit. With the new control surfaces I’ll try an give her an action look. That said I did make one really scary discovery when I was laying out the new control surfaces on the kit ones. After looking at some scale drawings it appears that the kit has some issues with the angle of the leading edge its control surfaces! I’ll know more once I start cutting things up….. and this was to be a simple build! Leon has since run away!

yeap and the finish was a semi-gloss one Enzo, you could do one in their delivery scheme which was silver, or rather painted Aluminum, or there is a cool looking later 2-tone Lo Vis scheme! There were also some special "one off" schemes as will that were used on some of the exercises? There must be a RAAF Mirage man somewhere around here that has all the good info.

haha, there's someone dedicated to getting the pattern right, I love it! Just be thankful you're not using HB painting instructions as the top views don't match the side views with the patterns at all! Looks like you've got a great finish, looking forward to seeing her unveiled.

…well sort of! I ran out of paint when doing the dark green and the paint I was using was super thinner down so I haven’t managed to get the proper finish so it will need redoing. That said I’m happy with the paint job so far…even if the pattern the instruction gave was wrong! HB stuffing this up as well.....who would have thought! One thing I did find though was some unwanted filler sink marks on the nose, plus I still had issues with the joins around the canopy. Some further masking, filling and sanding sorted them out. I gave these areas a quick coat with the same colour from another manufacturer, this will help when I redo the dark green. Whilst I was waiting for the filler to dry I decided to paint the undersides of the wings. I managed to get a uneven finish I was after to help take the solid black feel from the wings, but boy is it flat! For the final clear coat I may try a flat/semi-Gloss mix to try and make it not so flat. The actual finish was not really flat or Semi-Gloss, but something inbetween on the real thing. I may even have to slightly polish the clear coat to help remove the flatness…will have to see how the final coat goes on. So after a few touchup’s and reshaping of the camo pattern it was time for the rest of the Black undersurfaces. Again it way to flat but she really looks like the RF-111 I remember! Altogether she does look great. I’m super happy with the look of the Recon door, it’s depth is just right! I just need to redo the dark green, which I’m buying tomorrow, so should have that done and maybe even the clear coat by tomorrow night. It should be pretty straight forward then to the end. As I’m back to my normal work again I’ll only have the last few day before the finish to complete her……..I should make it!. And her little brother showed up….gosh she’s a big aircraft. Oh an a set of masks and decals for a Ukrainian 1/48th Su-24 in the “Digital” scheme showed up……something to sit beside her!!!

nice paint job Andrew, well done!

I guess they painted them red because they are considered part of the flight control system, all hidden surfaces are painted red. I even had a wee sleep/power nap on them after a particularly big/long night on exercise in Singapore!